The Assassin's Resolve
by TenyumeKasumi
Summary: Kai Leng could feel the cold hands of death curling around his empty soul as sharp as the omni-blade wound in his gut, but he was not done yet. No, there was one more thing he had to do...


It wasn't over yet.

Kai Leng dragged himself along the ground, an endless trail of liquid red left in his wake.

Humanity hadn't lost yet.

A grunt escaped him as his breath wheezed past his throat. Hacking coughs wracked his frame, more blood splattered onto the rocky ground and dripped from his lips as he panted with the effort of staying conscious. The edges of his vision were flickering in and out of focus but he steeled himself and stabbed his broken sword into the ground, using it as a cane to haul himself forward over the dirt as the rest of his broken body followed after.

He, impossibly, was still alive. And as long as he was still alive, he would fight.

The mass of rocky terrain was littered with bodies, debris and scorch marks. Countless lives from across all four corners of the galaxy had been lost here. The earth drowned in their blood and the air felt heavy with the moans and cries of the barely-alive in their death throes. Acrid smoke from a burning Mako nearby stung his eyes, filling his lungs and threatening to send him into another fit, but he soldiered past it and continued on towards his goal. At the centre of it all, amidst the death and destruction, was the Conduit.

The Illusive Man had already gone through, with Shepard and Captain Anderson hot on his heels. If he could just reach…

Another haul across a particularly craggy piece of ground brought a fresh wave stabbing, searing pain though his abdomen, where Shepard had ran him through with an omni-blade. The wound was fatal and it was a wonder how he wasn't dead yet. He couldn't be sure exactly how much blood he had lost getting from the remnants of the Cerberus headquarters to where he was, but he was sure the light-headedness was a result of it.

Fighting back the pain that tried to pull him under, he reached to pull himself forward again. He was so close, a mere twenty feet away, the streaming light from the Conduit almost blinded him. Just a bit more, he demanded his ruined body, just a bit more…

Then a death siren that screamed of fear and death rent the air and a massive, dark form landed behind the Conduit to block out the burning sky. It was a Reaper; Harbinger itself.

Kai Leng could only stare, uncomprehending, while the monstrous machine reared back and an ominous red glow appeared as Harbinger began powering up his canon. Then it clicked.

If Harbinger was here, there was no way he could get to the Conduit alive.

Harbinger was here to make sure nobody else got through the Conduit to the Citadel.

Harbinger was going to kill him.

If Harbinger killed him and destroyed all organic life, he could never eat cereal again.

He was going to _destroy_ Harbinger.

Drawing up the last vestiges of his body's energy and shield batteries, he summoned a kinetic barrier to envelope himself and give him the temporary strength to stand once again. Without thinking, he kicked off from the ground, launching himself through the air at an impossible height directly towards the Reaper King.

Kai Leng had no idea what made him do it. It felt like every thought had been erased from his mind and all he could think of was to rip apart the sentient machine in front of him. He soared over the Conduit with his limbs splayed like an eagle (why did he want to reach it in the first place? He couldn't remember); Cerberus' greatest assassin, a glorious aerial representation of humanity – and then he let out a raucous battle cry, "FOR FROOT LOOOOOPS!" Right before Harbinger's beam could fire, Kai Leng landed right atop his reticle and plunged his broken, jagged ninjato into the heart of the glowing red light, burying it to the hilt.

Harbinger gave a scream, or as much as a Reaper could scream, and jerked back like a person who had just been burned. The red light stuttered and flickered as Kai Leng held on with all his strength, refusing to let go even as the Reaper King bucked and swung in wide arcs in a desperate attempt to dislodge the tiny human. But his last burst of energy was quickly fading to nothing, and his shield batteries were running almost bone dry and beginning to falter. It was getting harder and harder to keep a grip on his sword…

Then at last, Harbinger teetered, swaying dangerously as each staggering step it took shook the earth below. With a final, vengeful wail, it's legs buckled and the Reaper King crumpled to the ground in heart-thumping crash that sent a tremor throughout the planet. The motion finally threw off the Cerberus assassin, and Kai Leng was flung back into the air like a ragdoll. As he fell, from his prime and to his death, only one thought ran through his mind.

At least the cereal was safe.

And then all went black.

* * *

**A/N:** There we go, Kasumi has written something that doesn't make a whit of sense once again.

To be honest, the idea came up during a conversation (if it can even be called that) in Afterlife's Forums Teamspeak channel. The original idea was much more complex and involved a kind of conspiracy theory were every single NPC was actually Kai Leng and then Kai Leng saves the galaxy by killing Harbinger which essentially destroyed the Reapers and saved everyone from the ending but eh, I wanted something short so I just wrote this part instead. xD

It started off a bit serious, but then at some point I kind of just threw up my hands and decided to go wild with it. So have some Froot Loops, guys.

Hold the line, fight for the cereal!

- Kasumi


End file.
